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Hauptmann Wilhelm von Brandisch
Hauptmann Wilhelm von Brandisch is a recurrent character in the Worrals books set during the Second World War. In Worrals Flies Again, Squadron Leader Marcus Yorke told Worrals her most dangerous adversary was likely to be von Brandisch, the head of the Gestapo in Occupied France. Yorke showed Worrals a photograph of von Brandisch which showed "a thin, cruel face, and large, outstanding ears. The eyes, small amd piercing, were set close together." Worrals remarked that she might forget the face but :never these eyes." Worral's first encounter with von Brandisch occured not long after she had arrived at the Chateau Delarose, the base for her courier mission. Von Brandisch already suspected that the chateau was the centre for a spy network (which was correct--it was headed by Lucien, Vicomte de la Rose). But while efficient, his investigation seemed always to be frustrated by the skill of his adversaries or bad luck. For example, he paid a visit to the chateau disguised as a nun but Worrals was able to reocognised him by his eyes and cough. He failed to find anything incriminating except for a chewing gum wrapper which Frecks laughed off by explaining that it was given to her by a British soldier some time ago. Von Brandisch was prescient enought to trap the field near the chateau with wires and was proven correct when a British aircraft did attempt to land and promptly crashed. He was then puzzled to discover that the pilot was a Gestapo man! By coincidence, some German troops and the Gestapo man had captured Worrals' plane. The Gestapo man had examined the map on board and found the chateau marked on it. He had probably flown there hoping to catch the conspirators waiting to received the aircraft. Von Brandisch then called on Worrals and Frecks and appointed them unofficial "Gestapo agents" with instructions to keep an eye on the chateau. Obviously he took precautions, by having another agent Leutnant Fritz Lowenhardt bug their bedroom. However Worrals and Frecks discovered the wire and staged a conversation for von Brandisch's benefit. Whether von Brandisch was totally taken in by Worrals until the end or was had been playing a double game all along was not clear. Certainly he granted the request of Worrals to release Monsieur Alphonse Mundier, as a reward for some good work in reporting the death of Lowenhardt. This was an unnecessary step which weakened his position. Nonetheless von Brandisch had an almost even chance of winning the end game. He had captured Bill Ashton who had parachuted in to make contact with Worrals. Worrals persuaded von Brandisch to let Bill escape so that he could be followed to his destination and so compromise his mission and contacts. Von Brandisch accepted this suggestion but craftily kept Worrals with him instead of allowing her to accompany Bill in his escape attempt. His plan was sound but he was let down by his subordinates. Bill actually managed to evade the surveillance and make it to the Chateau Delarose, outfoxing von Brandisch's assistant Werner and Oberleutnant Rudolf Schaffer--the latter actually let Bill enter the Chateau, reasoning that his orders were that no one was to be allowed out. At the end of the story, von Brandisch had almost cornered Worrals when his searchers found her W.A.A.F. uniform at the chateau. However she momentarily distracted her by knocking out the candle and tossing the tunic at him and then escaped by a secret exit in the fireplace. She and her party then evaded the German cordon by exiting the chateau via an underground waterway and escaped to Britain. Von Brandisch turns up again in Worrals on the War-Path. Here he comes to the Causse Mejean to investigate strange events: the arrival to two French "painters" at a nearby village (in reality Lucien and Raoul, then the murder of Vichy policeman Edmund Duclos, the landing of a Me-110 on the Causse and the disappearance of the pilot. All these were related to the arrival of Worrals and Frecks aided by Lucien and Raoul to set up a secret refueling base for British fighter aircraft enroute to Malta. He almost stumbled on the truth when he examined a painting done by Lucien. Unfortunately for von Brandisch, he chose to go to the topic of the painting, a distant plateau, rather than the viewpoint of the painter. In the end he did arrive at the correct conclusions but Worrals was able to surprise him from behind and hold him up (although she only used her finger to simulate a gun barrel). He used a commotion occasioned by a crashing aircraft to escape and ordered a bomber raid and then a parachute drop onto the causse but was in the event, too late to stop the refuelling and departure of the Spitifires or the escape of Worrals and Frecks. At the end of the book, Bill Ashton told Worrals that British intelligence had heard that von Brandisch was demoted for bungling the affair at the Causse Mejean. Category:People Category:Worrals characters